According to the new minister for housing Simon Coveney, the Government reportedly spend a whopping €46 million per year on hotels for homeless families who longer have a home.
Mr Coveney believes that the massive outlay needs to ended sooner rather than later and that more permanent solutions need to be put in place. Mr Coveney told RTE: “The current situation is not right, we can and we will find more suitable accommodation.”
He also claimed that the Government is currently to bring about a major change regarding the current homelessness crisis by undertaking “the biggest social housing building programme that Ireland has ever seen”.
Mr Coveney also said his main focus for the time being is to tackle homelessness, including rough sleeping and the housing of families in hostel and hotel accommodation unsuited to their needs. He also stated and that he planned to meet charities, voluntary agencies and local authorities this week to hear their suggestions and opinions on how to amend the current crisis.
Mr Coveney claimed the only way to tackle the housing shortage, is by actively increasing housing supply and to make that happen the country needs to increase its current building rate of 12,000 housing units a year to more than 30,000 to make up for the lack of housing projects during the recession.
Although the situation will not be addressed right away Mr Coveney said such a project would be possible to achieve within two to three years but it would need to be sustained for five to 10 years to make up for the deficit.
The housing minister also stated that he and the Government are fully committed to implementing a new housing strategy, and acknowledged previous Minister for the Environment Alan Kelly lay a lot of the ground work to make such a project happen.
“I need to continue and intensify that work – I’m not afraid of being radical, if that’s necessary. What’s happening at present is a national emergency. It needs an appropriate response. “We are going to undertake probably the biggest social housing build programme that Ireland has ever seen over the next five years.
“That needs to happen quickly – people don’t need to hear me talking about solutions that will take place in 2018 and 2019.” he added.